Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation has been an active area of research. DOA estimation has been used in a wide range of applications, including radar, sonar, electronic surveillance, and seismic exploration. DOA estimation is also becoming important in the communications field, such as in mobile device communications.
DOA estimation has typically been realized through mechanical or electrical solutions. Mechanical solutions usually involve a single receive antenna that rotates around horizontal or vertical axes to scan the vertical or azimuth planes. Electrical solutions may make use of large numbers of receive antennas, as well as analog or digital beamforming to find the spatial direction of the incoming electromagnetic beams. Therefore, there is a need for a simple system and method for estimating the DOA in two dimensions of an electromagnetic beam that do not require complex mechanical and/or electrical structures or large numbers of receive antennas.